The moment labor begins within a pregnant patient is sometimes difficult to detect because of several reasons including false labor or “Braxton Hicks contractions” which sometimes giving a patient the false sense of labor in contrast with actual labor. False labor contractions may be highly irregular and may be sensed in locations and with intensities unlike actual labor. However, false labor contractions may be very similar to actual labor. Some patients and caregivers may attribute these false labor contractions to actual labor or out of an abundance of caution may require the patient to travel to the hospital or other medical office to determine if actual labor has begun. It thus would be beneficial to provide for a remote labor monitoring system where the caregiver could detect and monitor actual labor without requiring that the patient visit a medical office.
Another factor that can make the detection of the onset of labor difficult is that in some cases the patient experiences silent labor, in which the onset of labor occurs without pronounced contractions and where dilation and effacement of the cervix are not accompanied with traditional contractions associated with common labor. For example, this may occur during normal pregnancy, premature birth conditions, and in spontaneous abortions (miscarriages). In some cases, contractions may not actually occur until minutes before actual delivery of the child at which point it may be too late to travel to a hospital or even to coordinate the necessary medical care. It therefore would be beneficial to identify the onset of labor, monitor the progress of labor, and to notify the patient and necessary caregiver prior to the onset of noticeable contractions. Identifying silent labor in time to transport the patient to a hospital would be beneficial in that it would reduce the number of maternal and fetal deaths that occur when delivery occurs outside of a hospital, or in cases where complications of births occur that require surgical intervention or specialized medical equipment. It would also be beneficial to alert the patient and caregiver of the initiation of a spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) in time to prevent it front occurring and thus save the life of the fetus.
In addition, in some instances, the bag of waters—or amniotic sac—which is a membrane filled with amniotic fluid that surrounds the fetus during pregnancy ruptures prior to the onset of labor, which may cause the amniotic fluid to leak through the cervix and the vagina requiring immediate medical attention. In some cases, this fluid leakage goes unnoticed because the release of fluid does not always occur as a sudden gush and may be a slow trickle resembling urinary leakage. When the membranes rupture, bacteria can enter through the rupture site. If the fetus is not delievered within 24 hours of the rupture, the bacteria may cause fetal demise (death). Knowledge of when the membranes have ruptured is important in order to induce labor in time to prevent fetal demise. Therefore, it would be beneficial to detect release of amniotic fluid and notify a caregiver of the release to coordinate travel to a medical office for medical care.
Once labor begins it may not occur in a linear fashion. Sometimes it can begin very gradually while in others, it can occur very rapidly. The active part of labor begins when the patient begins to push. However, to save energy, strength and to prevent unnecessary tears of the cervix, patients are not encouraged to push until the conclusion of the first stage of delivery which occurs when the cervix is dilated to approximately 10 cm. Generally, the patient is encouraged to seek medical attention only after the cervix is dilated 4 cm and the cervix is effaced and the membranes have ruptured. Pushing is generally encouraged when the cervix has achieved a maximum dilation of approximately 10 cm. Few patients can determine their dilation or the status of their cervix without medical supervision. In standard procedures, the measurement of the cervix involves the insertion of fingers or instruments into a women's vagina requiring additional medical resources and causing unnecessary discomfort to patients who are already uncomfortable. During labor, constant and repeated measurements of the cervix are required during the various stages of labor. Therefore, there is a need for a way to actively measure and monitor the cervix during the labor process which does not tax the already limited medical personnel to perform an otherwise routine measurement of the cervix while waiting for the birth to begin while the patient is not in active labor or the actual delivery is not eminent.
Many attempts to monitor the onset and condition of labor including U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,423,000, 6,383,137, 6,363,271, 5,807,281, 5,406,981, 3,768,459, 5,438,996, 4,476,871, 5,876,357, 5,713,371, 5,851,188, 4,719,925, 4,682,609, 4,207,902, 3,583,389, 4,203,450, 4,055,839, 4,264,900, 4,232,686, 5,776,073, 5,450,837 and 5,879,293 which all fail to teach the present invention which as further described and disclosed below provides a remote microelectromechanical labor monitoring system which provides a rapid and easy continuous measurement and monitoring of the cervix during pregnancy and labor to provide medical caregivers using a handheld remote monitoring device relevant medical data regarding the pregnancy and delivery of the child transmitted to the handheld remote monitoring in numeric and visual representations.